Ra****s rehoused at Noah's Ark zoo farm near Nailsea

Images courtesy of Dave Sullivan, of Animal Images

By Carol_Deacon | Wednesday, September 01, 2010, 09:55

Tomorrow is moving day for a small group of inquisitive South American coatis who live at Noah’s Ark zoo farm, near Nailsea.

The zoo at Wraxall it making room for some new arrivals so the ground-foraging relatives of the racoons are being given a purpose-built new home.

Three brown-nosed coatis which are small furry mammals who use their snouts to root around on the ground for insects, fruit and nuts, are being built a special new enclosure in the South American section of the zoo.

This is to make room for new primates which are arriving soon.

After five years in their previous accommodation, the coatis will now be able to use a large new climbing structure, reaching 25ft high and consisting of many aerial walkways, poles and ropes to encourage their natural climbing behaviour.

The quarter of an acre will give ample room for foraging and making use of their high energy levels through lots of activity for the boisterous male and two females.

The space will be in separate halves for the two sexes to best ensure the females are protected from unwanted advances when not ready to breed.

With a small initial population of coatis, provisions have been made for any future arrivals with new, large, purpose-built houses designed to hold the females together in an aerial nest and giving the males a ground-based separate ‘bungalow’ of their own.

This is to give new mothers the privacy and security they need, whilst allowing the males to carry on with their normal behaviours of foraging and interacting.

Noah’s Ark is open Monday-Saturday 10.30am-5pm.

There are now more than 100 sorts of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates at Noah’s Ark, including several important species classified as ‘endangered’ to ‘vulnerable’ on the IUCN red list.

These include cotton topped tamarins (critically endangered), white rhinos (near threatened), Brazilian tapirs (vulnerable) and Siamang gibbons (endangered).

The brown-nosed or South American coati (is a diurnal mammal found in most of the South American countries, including Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay.

Coatis are omnivorous, eating a mixed diet of fruit, nuts, insects, small animals and their eggs.

They are excellent climbers, searching for food high in forest canopies, while also being equally at home scouting amongst leaf-litter on the forest floor.

Females in a group come ‘on heat’ at the same time, mating with multiple males during this reproductive window. 2-4 young are born and cared for in an aerial nest for 4-6 weeks.

The new coatis enclosure is due to be completed on Thursday, September 2.

Noah’s Ark attracts more than 130,000 visitors each year.

The zoo farm was started in 1999 and animals include lions, giraffe, zebras, rhinos, tigers, gibbons, camels and 100 other types.

As well as the longest hedge maze in the world, visitors can enjoy huge indoor and outdoor adventure playgrounds.

http://www.nailseapeople.co.uk/news/Ra-s-rehoused-Noah-s-Ark-zoo-farm-near-Nailsea/story-6978571-detail/story.html

Coati missing from Belfast Zoo thought still alive

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11097525

Coati missing from Belfast Zoo thought still alive
By Niall Glynn BBC News
White nosed coati The coati has been missing since 19 July

The manager of Belfast Zoo has said he is confident a racoon-like animal which escaped more than five weeks ago is still alive.

The white-nosed coati from Belize escaped from the north Belfast site on Monday 19 July.

"While it remains relatively mild we're presuming it's still alive," zoo manager Mark Challis said.

"They're resourceful, relatively tough animals and there's a good presumption that it's still alive."

The mammal was being held in quarantine after just arriving at the zoo.

It had been hoped the female would take part in a breeding programme with several other coatis recently imported.

Mr Challis said there had been three sightings of the coati on the periphery of the zoo two weeks ago, but none since.
Continue reading the main story
"Start Quote

This is a small mammal, no bigger than a domestic cat and by nature it's not going to be looking for a confrontation with dogs or cats"

End Quote Mark Challis Belfast Zoo manager

"It was quite reassuring to have these sightings close to the zoo, because that's what we thought it would do, because it knew the site and obviously we were putting food out for it as well.

"So we're hopeful that it's still quite close to us," he said.

"If we do get a good sighting of it, we're ready to run wherever we're needed."

The coati is an omnivorous animal and is likely to be surviving on fruits, berries and leaves as well as mice and small birds,

The zoo manager stressed that it was no threat to any domestic pets it may cross paths with.

"This is a small mammal, no bigger than a domestic cat and by nature it's not going to be looking for a confrontation with dogs or cats or anything like that," he said.

"By nature it's going to be more shy and retiring than that."

While so far the coati seems to be staying close to the zoo, two previous escapees were found further afield.

Two different red pandas escaped in 1999 and 2002.

"One was put up a tree by fox hounds in Templepatrick and we caught the other one in a garden on the outskirts of Glengormley," Mr Challis said.